Just in time for the Fourth of July, the Supreme Court ended its term with a “bang,” delivering landmark victories for the rule of law and reminding voters just how crucial the Court’s 6-3 conservative majority is not only for their political concerns, but for the health of the republic.
Here’s a breakdown of the most consequential final High Court decisions this term.
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo
In Loper, the Court overturned the doctrine of so-called “Chevron Deference,” which held that federal judges must defer to agencies in the executive branch in their interpretation of ambiguous statutes. This decision, which was handed down in 1984, gifted unelected bureaucrats the power to essentially make law, emboldening what many conservatives have derided as the Deep State, or a constitutionally nonexistent fourth branch of government.
But on June 28, Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett dealt Chevron a long-overdue death blow. “Chevron has proved to be fundamentally misguided,” Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority. “It reshaped judicial review of agency action without grappling with the [Administrative Procedure Act], the statute that lays out how such review works. And its flaws were apparent from the start, prompting the Court to revise its foundations and continually limit its application.”
In a concurring opinion, Gorsuch noted that overturning Chevron would return “judges to interpretative rules that have guided federal courts since the Nation’s founding.” He continued: “[A]ll today’s decision means is that, going forward, federal courts will do exactly as this Court has since 2016, exactly as it did before the mid-1980s, and exactly as it had done since the founding: resolve cases and controversies without any systemic bias in the government’s favor.”
The constitutional gravity of Loper can hardly be overstated. As many conservative legal analysts have noted, the fall of Chevron will do more than any Supreme Court decision in modern American history to restore the framers’ vision of our constitutional order. But even more so, it will at long last strip power away from the sprawling administrative state that has for far too long played an outsized role in the American lawmaking and regulatory landscape.
Trump v. United States
In undoubtedly the most politically explosive ruling this term, on July 1 the Court ruled by a 6-3 margin in Trump v. United States that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for certain actions they take in their official capacity as president. Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett ruled in the majority, with Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson in the minority.
At the heart of this case is Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against Trump, which seeks to criminally charge Trump for the events of January 6, 2021. Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, told the Court during the April oral arguments that the “presidency as we know it” would change forever in the absence of presidential immunity—and would allow the president’s political rivals to criminally charge future commanders-in-chief for engaging in official presidential duties. Sauer raised, for instance, the possibility that Joe Biden could be charged with fomenting the border crisis, or that Barack Obama could be charged with launching drone strikes resulting in the death of American citizens.
The Court ruled in Sauer’s favor, striking a potentially fatal blow to Jack Smith’s anti-Trump lawfare and virtually ensuring that Trump’s Washington, D.C.-based trial won’t take place until after the November election, if at all.
Though leftists in elected office and the corporate media have predictably lost their minds over the Trump v. United States ruling—and are actively using the Court’s decision as yet another weapon in their longstanding Supreme Court delegitimization campaign—in practice, the ruling is generally legally narrow. As Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, presidential immunity does not apply to unofficial acts. “[T]hat immunity extends to official discussions between the President and his Attorney General, and then remand to the lower courts” for further deliberation, he writes.
Roberts also took aim at the apocalyptic rhetoric of Sotomayor’s and Jackson’s dissents (which outrageously claimed the decision would incentivize corruption and reshape “the institution of the Presidency”), noting that their “chilling tone of doom” is “wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today.”
In the end, the Court’s 6-3 decision serves not only as a massive tactical victory for Trump just four months out from Election Day, but also as a substantial institutional victory for the office of the presidency, which is now empowered to function as a strong, energetic, and broadly powerful office—or as legal analyst Josh Hammer observed, just as Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln envisioned it.
Fischer v. United States & City of Grants Pass v. Johnson
Another notable Court victory from this term came from Fischer v. United States, in which the justices significantly narrowed the scope of charges against some January 6 defendants. After years in which many of these defendants have been denied bail and given long prison sentences for nonviolent crimes, this decision was one step closer to justice.
In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Court ruled that a city can constitutionally ban homeless people from sleeping in public—a ruling that empowers cities all across the nation to crack down on the homelessness crisis and restore the rule of law in America’s cities and suburbs.
As Americans prepare for the coming November election, it is worth noting that, prior to Trump’s election, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were the only reliable constitutionalists sitting on the High Court—and the faux “living constitutionalism” embodied by the Court’s progressive wing was the driving force behind the High Court’s legal interpretation. But that all changed with Trump’s three appointments—Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—who handed constitutional conservatives their first ever Court majority.
In the years ahead, the Court is almost certain to add to its impressive repertoire of conservative legal wins—and should Donald Trump reclaim the presidency this fall, the Court’s current 6-3 Republican-appointed majority could continue to grow. Despite the media’s predictable hysteria this week, every American who cares about the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the American constitutional order should hope it does.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
